Tick Tock: Time Running Out for Struggling Oil and Gas DrillersThe 18th oil and gas driller so far this year is in the process of filing for bankruptcy protection, as the company ran out of funds. As reported by Fuel Fix, the Fort Worth-based Energy & Exploration Partners, which drills for oil and gas in East Texas, had the unfortunate timing of going public in 2014 just as oil prices began collapsing.

Arnold: Half of US energy industry may go underJohn Arnold, the legendary energy trader formerly of the hedge fund Centaurus Advisors, expects half of the U.S. energy industry to go bankrupt next year if the price of oil does not rebound.

Across the American shale patch, companies are being forced to square their reported oil reserves with hard economic reality. After lobbying for rules that let them claim their vast underground potential at the start of the boom, they must now acknowledge what their investors already know: many prospective wells would lose money with oil hovering below $40 a barrel.

While the global market is currently oversupplied with crude, Rystad Energy research shows that investment decisions for only 8 billion barrels were made in 2015, even though the oil industry needs to replace 34 billion barrels of crude every year. This amount is less than 25 percent of what the market requires long-term.

## Propaganda ##A Day When Journalism DiedDec. 9 has a grim meaning for the Republic, the date in 2004 when investigative reporter Gary Webb, driven to ruin by vindictive press colleagues for reviving the Contra-cocaine scandal, took his own life, a demarcation as the U.S. press went from protecting the people to shielding the corrupt.

Cruz Threatens to Nuke ISIS TargetsRepublican presidential campaign rhetoric is red-hot regarding Islamic terrorism, with Sen. Cruz suggesting the use of nuclear weapons to see "if sand can glow in the dark," a threat even more troubling than Donald Trump's call to temporarily bar Muslims from entering the U.S.